I have Meraki MV21 and I wanted to just dump all the video on the camera to a local drive. Can't do it. So I did my research and miracle of miracles! Meraki has a "Archiving" Solution. Checked that out and was bloody expensive.

So I pay more for the camera, a usage license and now they want to extort me to access my camera footage.

Screw that noise.

But wait! there is obviously functionality built in to allow the camera to "archive" footage. That's better then when tech support answered "No we can't do that."

Anyone know if I can hit the IOS of the camera with SSH? or some other mechanism to download my camera data?

Yes I am seriously considering selling the camera to some poor unsuspecting SUCKER - but my momma raised me to be honest. So if I can't find some sort of reasonable solution I will start to divest my network of Meraki Cameras.

And I spent a ton of time trying to find camera systems that aren't tied to Chinese companies. There is a reason Hikvision and Dahua are on the no-fly list for USG contract now. Hikvision Cloud = Chinese Intelligence Services Cloud.

It's bad enough Verkada cameras use Huawei chips, at least the firmware is all domestic. That, and they're made in Taiwan, not PRC.

If you're not a government institution that is prohibited to use Chinese tech it really is a non-issue.

Hikvision is pretty much the biggest video surveillance manufacturer and a market leader in the field and they have a very solid tech with good price. Unlike many other
video surveillance
vendors their software and firmware is constantly developed and updated for security fixes. That is also one of the reasons why I would choose them over many other vendors.

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That is the "modus operandi" for Meraki. Buy the hardware and still have to buy a license to use it as expensive as the hardware, and if you dont, then the hardware is expensive door stopper. To top it off, the hardware is priced well above what is worth. But done with Meraki rant.Once you are unhappy it is better to move to something else. It is quite hard to buy in marketing hype when you smell BS on everything. But if you have to use the camera, check BlueIris to see if it can capture the live stream.It is good to use, because you will get experience with Blue Iris which works really well with Axis cameras (the ones I am recommending to switch to)The reason that Meraki might require the archive license is that they might be using a proprietary codec, so you might be stuck to only get live feed to record.